A panel of Fox News hosts asserted on Tuesday that women needed to decide if they were going to act like “victims” by supporting free birth control or if they were the type of woman who could “handle alcohol” like a man.

As Republicans on the House Oversight Committee were berating Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards, Fox News host Andrea Tantaros asserted that liberals were playing the “woman card” by defending abortion rights.

“I don’t like when the woman card is played to cover bad behavior,” she opined. “I mean, we’ve seen it with Hillary Clinton, she plays the woman card to cover up bad behavior. Now, we’re seeing Planned Parenthood.”

“I would love for Democrat females to tell me today — and the rest of women everywhere — what are we?” she quipped. “Are we victims? Are we people who can’t handle servers and who bungle national security information? Are we weak, are we individuals who can’t handle our alcohol, who need men to help us and protect us, to pay our bills?”

During a post-show Internet broadcast, Tantaros expanded on her thoughts: “We have arguments from the left that we can’t handle our alcohol, we can’t drink as much as the boys can on college campuses, we need special protections for us.”

“Then at the same time, we hear, ‘We’re equal, we’re strong, we don’t need a man,'” she opined. “Again, we need the government to pay for our birth control because we can’t afford it ourselves.”

For Fox News Medical A-Team member Dr. Keith Ablow, women playing the victim card could be encapsulated in the idea of a teenage girl wearing yoga pants to get attention.

“Teenage girls want to wear leggings to school but they don’t want to be stared at,” he remarked. “Or they say they don’t want to be stared at. But then again, why are we wearing the leggings to school — yoga pants. So, there’s this tremendous conflict going on.”

“You will run into these skirmishes, like men don’t tend to raise money for their health causes, they don’t tend to do that,” Ablow continued. “As you said, ‘Birth control, we have to get more of it, it’s got to be funded.’ Men don’t tend to do that. There’s no massive movement for prostate cancer to be given preferential funds.”

About the Author

David Edwards has served as an editor at Raw Story since 2006. His work can also be found at Crooks & Liars, and he's also been published at The BRAD BLOG. He came to Raw Story after working as a network manager for the state of North Carolina and as as engineer developing enterprise resource planning software. Follow him on Twitter at @DavidEdwards.